Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Polls and Links for Tuesday

FormosaNation passed these around Twitter today. Top poll is Apple Daily, bottom poll is Liberty Times. Both show that Tsai crushes all comers. On Twitter several were remarking that the Apple Daily poll includes more Blues. However, note the Taiwan thinktank poll below, which has Tsai up only a few points on Chu. Best Chu speculation so far, from a friend: Chu doesn't want to run for president because... he might win.

NEWS: DPP turncoat Shih Ming-teh is supposed to launch independent presidential bid tomorrow. I would never think that is related to the fact that running a political campaign is a great way to collect money. Also, any news service that reports that Shih is a former DPP Chairman without reporting that he switched sides around 2000 is lying to you by omission.

Quote of the day from Alton Thompson about J Michael Cole's piece on what Taiwan would gain from being annexed to China (National Interest): It's a sad situation when the most seductive argument a regime can muster for signing onto it is 'Don't worry. We'll treat you better than we treat our own people. Trust us.'

EVENT: Next Jerome Keating meet up: Jerome Keating (jkeating@ms67.hinet.net) writes: We are back on track for our next meeting... (READ MORE)

Time and Date-- Sunday May 24th, 10 am
Speaker: Bo Tedards, Director of Amnesty International Taiwan
Topic: Amnesty International, how it helped Taiwan in the past; and how it now works from Taiwan to help Asian countries.
Venue: We are trying out a new venue-- it is right near the Liuchangli MRT Station at HePing East Rd. and Keelung Rd.
The name of the place is Vinyl Decision
Address No. 6, Lane 38 Chongde St. Xinyi Dist.
Website has a map. www.vinyldecision.com
It is a cool place that you will want to know about to listen to oldies on LP.
Phone if lost, 02 8732-9969
From the MRT station, stay on the east side of Keelung; and cross HePing to its north side, Chongde Rd. is right there off the circle.
Breakfast will be NT$125. Free flowing coffee and egg sandwiches etc.
You have no doubt heard of Amnesty International, this is a good chance to find out all that it is involved in.
And if you want to work with them on projects.
Give me (Jerome) a heads up if you are coming._______________________[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

9 comments:

New theory: Eric Chu is a latter day Lee Teng-Hui (re: your "saw the light" point in an earlier post). He's a self-discovered, self-appointed Taiwanese nationalist Trojan horse within the KMT, and doing everything he can to scupper their chances for a generation.

Not realistic, but I imagine this is a belief taking shape in some Deep Blue pockets. And currently indistinguishable outcome-wise from whatever he's really up to.

"New theory: Eric Chu is a latter day Lee Teng-Hui (re: your "saw the light" point in an earlier post). He's a self-discovered, self-appointed Taiwanese nationalist Trojan horse within the KMT, and doing everything he can to scupper their chances for a generation."

Love it!

For all of its positions and faults, to me, the most concerning thing about the KMT right now from a democratic process perspective is actually that no one believes the only two candidates registered for the primary are the ones that will actually be nominated for the real campaign! Everyone believes Ma Ying-jeou and Eric Chu will completely ignore process and make an independent choice.

This is extremely damaging for a competitive democracy. The DPP needs a healthy opponent that keeps it honest, not one that is a complete joke and even to this day, hesitates in its commitment to democracy. I wouldn't be so sure that these developments are great for the DPP.

A party realignment couldn't come soon enough. Whatever his faults, I see James Soong and the PFP destroying the KMT as the only way to keep democracy going strong. But the realignment most likely would be chaotic and create a lot of noise that will coverup real issues, and so it's hard to see it as a great path either...

COMMENTS: May take a while. Google screwed up the old Comments functions in its most recent "upgrade" which really hurt the functionality and usability of Blogger, another trademark Google upgrade that made problems worse while adding more clicks to get anything done.

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